The Dutch were famously fond of "all cakes and breads", and excelled in making them and made them in great variety. Favorite articles of food were three kinds of fried cakes; the doughy doughnut, the
tender oil-cakes, the crisp and crumbling crueler. The name oil-cakes literally means they were originally boiled or fried in oil.

The famous olykoeks were thus concocted, as given by an old Dutch recipe of the year 1740, belonging to Mrs. Morris Patterson Ferris:

About twelve o'clock set a little yeast to rise, so as to be ready at five p.m. to mix with the following ingredients:

Warm the butter, sugar and milk together, grate a nutmeg in the flour, add eggs last. Place in a warm place to rise. If quite light at bedtime, work them down by pressing with the hand. At nine next
morning make into small balls with the hand, and place in the centre of each a bit of raisin, citron, and apple chopped fine. Lay on a well-floured pie-board and allow them to rise again. They are
frequently ready to boil at two o'clock. In removing them from the board use a knife, well-floured, and just give them a little roll with the hand to make them round. Have the fat boiling, and boil
each one five minutes. When cool roll in sifted sugar.

In one of the old inventories of the Van Cortlandt family, is the item "bolla-buysies" or -bun pan-, as follows:

"To a pound of flower a quarter of a pound of sugar, the same of butter, 4 egs, sum Nut-Meg and Senamond, milk and yeast, A pint of milk to 2 pound of flower".